This invention relates to the evaluation of structural surfaces, nondestructive testing and other utilizations of surface characteristics, and more particularly to the mapping of such surfaces with respect to ellipsometric parameters in order to predict failure areas for such applications as adhesion, corrosion, lubrication, and the like.
It is a conventional practice in preparing structural members for manufacture, surface finishing and final assembly to utilize certain maps to represent various surface characteristics. Such maps plot data, relating to corrosion, adhesion, lubrication and other characteristics and are known as application or surface maps (designated S-maps). In conjunction with these manufacturing procedures it would be desirable to provide further safeguards against failures in the final product. For example, after preparing a wing section for adhesive bonding it would be valuable to map the surface in order to predetermine areas that might fail and therefore need further treatment or need to be discarded.
The present invention is directed toward providing ellipsometric parameter maps (designated I-maps and P-maps) that define various surface and physical ellipsometric parameters that can be correlated with the S-maps. Such supplemental maps satisfy a current need by providing means for detecting many instances of potential failure as well as being a source of other manufacturing and safety information.